Survey predicts Left comeback in Bengal

After successive debacles in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections and the 2011 Assembly polls, the Left Front is likely to witness a major comeback in the state during the 2014 general elections, a survey by Edelweiss Financial Services has claimed.

The report has cited disappointment of the public with the Mamata Banerjee government and snapping of Congress Trinamool pre-poll ties as the reasons for the possible comeback of the Left Front in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

Unlike the Left, Trinamool does not have a well-defined ideological space in the political spectrum and its political base is heterogeneous and much more mobile compared to the former. Given these dynamics, it is likely that 2014 will see revival of the Left.

Accordingly, the Trinamool tally is likely to decline in 2014,” the survey has said.

According to the Edelweiss survey, the Left Front’s tally may improve to 21-23 of the total number of 42 seats in the state in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, from just 15 in 2009. On the other hand, Trinamool Congress’ tally in the 2014 polls may decline to 16-18 from 19 in 2009.

The survey has projected Congress’s tally at twofour against six in 2009.

SUCI (communist), which had a pre-poll alliance with the Trinamool in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, might be reduced to zero in 2014 from one in 2009. The BJP, in alliance with the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM), managed to bag the sole Darjeeling seat in 2009. But it could also draw a blank, as per the Edelweiss survey.

When contacted, CPI(M) central committee member Md Salim said that this is quite a realistic assessment considering the largescale disillusionment among the public with the Trinamool government. “The disillusionment is among all levels starting from industrialists to the common working class.

Naturally, it will have a reflection in the 2014 polls,” Salim said.

Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha member from Uluberia Sultan Ahmed dismissed the Edelweiss survey’s findings. “Such findings are absolutely bogus. After the panchayat election results are out, everybody will know how baseless the findings of such surveys are,” Ahmed said.